Welcome to Winter

 

One of the first things Chris did when we moved to the Teton Valley was to buy a family season pass to Grand Targhee Ski resort.

 

Winters are long here, so we might as well enjoy the snow right?!

 

Luckily Abby is still free to ski. With our pass we were actually able to add my niece Autumn to it, so hopefully she'll discover a fondness for snow/cold and get out on the mountain with us.

 

We hit up opening day at Targhee with such excitement! The weather was AWESOME! Blue skies and nice temps!

 

 

 

This is me with the utmost excitement that I finally made it to the bottom of one of the hills.

Not sure why but it kicked my butt.

Epic falls, poles in the air, classy Cindy right there!

I swore.

A lot.

I was so frustrated that I couldn't just get down the friggin mountain in one run.

 

The first run went great. Then Chris said "let's go down here, the run has been groomed already"

Sure! Let's do it.

I got cocky. Too early in the season for that!

 

Sure glad I provided some entertainment to those watching above on the chairlifts.

 First run of the season 

We decided to mortgage our first home and put Abby in the "1/2 daycare with 1 lesson" program for the day so Chris and I could get a few runs in before having the girls with us for the rest of the day.

 

She really enjoyed it AND she got an hour long one-on-one ski lesson with a PROFESSIONAL.

*I'm kidding on the mortgage comment although at times living up here it feels that way!

She is my little snow bunny



At lunch time Chris went to pick Anna up from school and bring her up, so Abby and I hit the kiddie hill.

She likes SPEED and wants to GO FAST

 

And when she's tired she just wants to eat snow

 

When Anna arrived we took turns taking the girls down the training hill

 

 

The thing with Anna is that she wants to do it right the first time.

No falling.

No practicing.

No "here sit and watch me first".

 

But as we know with MOST things in life...that doesn't always work out the way WE want it to.

I love Anna and her determination.

She had fun when she was doing well, but got frustrated when she wasn't.

This kid wants to do it once and then go down the big hill.

 

I have no doubt in my mind that after a few more days on the small hill, she'll be hitting up the bigger (okay bigger for kids that is) hills in no time!

 

I'm pretty sure this will be our norm from now until April.

Hitting the slopes.

Pink noses.

Cocoa in the lodge.

Huge memories!





Fabulous 4

I wrote FABULOUS 4 because the two's were terrible, 3's were threatening, so I'm hoping by calling 4 "FABULOUS"...they will be!

It's official. My baby is FOUR
How did that happen so fast!!
It's like overnight she just grew up!

 

 

One thing didn't change.

Her love for horses. Still loves them and I don't even think I could count how many she has!

I think it's more of an obsession now. I can see early hoarding tendencies in this one!

She has branched out from collecting horses and actually loves to play with ALL animals.

Especially zebras, CHEETAHS, tigers and elephants.

"CHEETAHS ARE THE BEST MOM!"

So what's a homemade cake with out plastic animals on top?

I never said I was Martha Stewart!

 Since she really doesn't have a "group" of friends to celebrate a birthday party with, I took her to her first gymnastics lesson on her big day. She's the ONLY girl in the group and she totally rocked it!

After class I took her to her favorite lunch place. PIZZA from Tony's. Delicious!
Notice the horses on her shirt?
75% of the shirts she owns has horses or unicorns on them.
Like I said...obsessed!

We had to head down to SLC this past weekend for a baby blessing, so we celebrated her birthday again with my mom and sisters family.

 

Again, plastic animals around the cake. This time they were TOO big to put ON the cake!

And again, she LOVED it! Thanks Grandma for putting it all together!

I'm pretty sure Ab's had a great day turning 4. She's a fun kid and I'm super blessed to be her mom!



Halloween in Teton Valley



I'm not going to lie. I was very scared at how Halloween was going to work this year.

When you live in a country community like the Teton Valley, most of the houses are spread out so it's not ideal for trick-or-treating. There are a few actual subdivisions where you can go door to door and the kids aren't clocking 10 miles in a single night. :)

 

Okay so I may be exaggerating a bit, but for the past 5 years we lived in a Layton neighborhood where you had 1-5 kids occupying every house. That made for a VERY busy night of trick-or-treating. How on earth were my kids going to get all that delicious healthily candy if they couldn't hit up at least 45 houses in a single night?

 

I know it's popular...but who wants to get candy out of the truck of a car?  Where's the fun in that? And don't we teach our kids NOT to take candy from strangers out of a car??

 

When I was a kid you RAN up to each house, yelling 'TRICK OR TREAT' at the top of your lungs before your foot even hit the first doorstep. You knocked and knocked and waited impatiently for the old man to get up from his recliner to grab that bowl of candy and walk down that hall (which when you're 10 felt like an eternity!)

 

Trick or treating was the best! Free candy? And all I have to do is sucker my mom into buying a $30 costume that I'll wear once, for about 1.5 hours and then never again? All to get FREE candy that will no doubt cost (my mom) later when she's paying that deductible for cavity fillings.

 

Halloween is the best!!

 



 

 

This is our ghoul picture.

PUMPKIN BRAINS!!

 

So Halloween night came and first we were obligated (by none other than Miss. Vampire herself) to hit up the school trick or treating. That took about 5 minutes and more anxiety that it was worth!

Kitty cat. She's 4 and has alternated between a cowboy, cat, horse, cat now. I think we have a pattern.

 

Next we, along with 3/4 of the residence of Victor, hit up the one of the few actual neighborhoods in the area that was ideal for free candy.

I classify "neighborhood" to mean that the houses are so close to one another that you don't need a car or horse to get to your neighbors front door!

 

It was snowing, of course, so coats over the costumes was mandatory once we got out walking around. Luckily the girls are too young to realize that having to wear a coat over that costume that YOU JUST HAD TO HAVE MOM!!!! really kinda sucks. I'm sure I'll deal with that the older the girls get.

 

Seriously, I remember having to wear a coat over my punk rocker costume when I was younger...what's the fun in that? Puck rockers don't wear ski parkas and moon boots?

And I'm talking authentic 1980's moonboots!!)

 

 

We ran into the Headless Horseman

Seriously, how freaking COOL is this?

You don't get horses walking around Layton neighborhoods on Halloween, so score 1 for us!

 

So after walking around in the snow and cold we finally called it a night. The girls had cold, wet feet (deduct 1 from me for not having my girls wear SNOW boots) and full candy bags. Anna's hair was 1990's crunchy from the black spray and Abby's whiskers were one whip away from disappearing. Perfect time for a picture!!

The girls actually had a good time. We only got 1 group of trick-or-treaters at our house. WE are one of those houses that people say "ya know, it's too far in between the others, let's go the other way". However when that 1 group did come, Perk made sure Anna made it worth their while by giving a big handful of candy.

Candy leftover from Autumn's birthday party that is. I knew better than to buy Halloween candy. Score 1 for me!